I need help Identifying a couple wires.

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Wrencher

Wrencher

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Hello,

I have been driving my '66 Dart quite a bit over the last 10 days or so after doing a lot of work to it. I've posted my progress (and story) over in the early A section. I have had a few issues pop up and need a hand with them.

The battery, over the course of the last few days has been getting weaker and weaker. Today, it was dead after kicking the engine over only a couple times. I didnt dig too deep yet, but a quick visual inspection revealed a possible cause. I was wondering if anyone would know.

See this pic.
IMG_0156.jpg


The two wires are in the middle connector, bottom right. Green and blue. Both wires are routed along the firewall, and then run along the valve cover to the front of the engine. The Blue wire is terminated at the Coil, while the green hangs loose. It has a ring connector attached to it as if it two goes to the coil. Im not sure what the reason would be though. Im wondering if this needs to go to the alternator?

Also, The wire that is burned, what circuit is this? This cannot be a good sign. There is not one single electrical load on this car that MaMopar didnt put there.

This picture shows the wire hanging loose(in the foreground).

IMG_0157.jpg
 
Looking at the picture on something other than my iphone, I see that the yel/blk wire looks to show signs of being in distress. Add that one to the list of wires i need identified :)

Thanks
 
You don't have a shop manual? Well my friend you are in LUCK You can download a free copy right here:

der thread

http://www.forabodiesonly.com/mopar/showthread.php?t=132309

And the linkeydoo, which actually came from MyMopar:

http://www.mymopar.com/downloads/ser...ice_Manual.zip

You will have to play with page numbers, as they are consecutive, rather than the mopar "dash" system. Electrical section, (8-1) starts on page 189

Wiring diagram index (8-101) is page 289

Most of the Valiant (Dart) stuff starts on page (8-114) 302

Here's the engine bay drawing:

So look at the drawing of the bulkhead connector, middle connector, second from bottom, is "K" Now find "K" in the mate connector further up the page under the alternator, and you see that it is wire "C2", and if you look at the chart at far right, you'll see that C2 is "dark blue"

Now follow C2 up and to the left, and see that it goes to the A/C clutch if used.

I guess the green you are referring to is "J" in the same bulkhead section, going to wire C5, also shown as "dark blue" and goes to the A/C blower motor, so I don't know why it's green.

What is a LOT of concern is the burned wires

The one at bottom right appears to be bulkhead no "B", which is wire R6, an no 12 black

This is the main output of your alternator. That bulkhead connector has UNdoubtedly suffered considerable damage, and should be dissassembled and repaired. PLEASE read this MAD article which points out some of the pitfalls

The yellow/ black tracer in the left section goes to your park lights. There is no reason that one should have been damaged, which shows that probably, the bulkhead connector became loose/ corroded, and generated some heat in that terminal.

http://www.madelectrical.com/electricaltech/amp-gauges.shtml
 

Attachments

picture 2
Looks like a tach wire to me or maybe an oil pressure sender wire. Did it have a tach added at some point in its life and then get removed. Does the alternator in the picture have a field terminal wire going to it? In the picture all I see is the main power feed I don't see the little wire. It could be someone didn't have a push on terminal and installed a ring terminal so they screw the field wire onto the alternator screw.

Nevermind about the alt. I looked again closer and saw the wire in question under the main harness.
 
Thanks a lot guys. I will download the manual and see if i can get this handled. I didnt know about thr free download so thank u very much 67dart273

The alternater output wire if im not mistaking can be bypassed by doing the ammeter mod. I plan on doing this when i wake up in the morning anyway because i hate the aftermarket ammeter thats hanging under the dash from a previous repair at some point.

The ac compressor.... Wow. I totally overlooked that one.


The yel/black wire just appears to have been hot. Both my front parking bulbs come and go due to sockets being old so i wonder if the added resistance couldve heated up that wire.

I think i will go ahead and pull the cluster as well because i have no dash lights, as well as a left turn signal that doesnt blink, nor does the indicator come on. id like to get that figured out.


Mcnoople, i dont think the car ever had a tach installed. my grandfather was far too cheap to buy anything the car didnt need lol:-)

I suppose its not a bad idea to try and get all my electrical issues taken care of in the morning lol. I have the relays and might as well rewire those headlights and install new front sockets. Im actually rathet looking forward to this:-)
 
Good to hear you're makin' progress
 
so i just took a break for a few minutes. I unwittingly broke the windshield wiper switch removing the dash earlier and am hoping autozone has one.

How in the hell this car never had serious electrical issues is beyond me. The wiring harness, where it loops over the top of the steering column was actually pinched in between the column and its horseshoe type cutout.... no tape was cut so im guessing the wires are alright. I loosened stuff up to free it rather than pulling it. Very strange to say the least.

My guess is the person who installed the aftermarket ammeter must have done it. Just a guess though.

On the bulkhead connectors. Other than a little corrosion and signs of water intrusion, its really not as bad as i thought. I think i can clean up the pins there and use some di electric grease to keep any further damage from occurring. The burned wire i will pass a wire through like that mad schematic suggests, so i think the only serious problem is going to take care of itself bulkhead wise.

As for the dash lights, I think every last bulb in the thing is just blown, except for the right turn signal indicator. I assume in the later years of my grandfathers life he wasnt driving that car at night, and may not have decided to replace or have them replaced.


The front parking lamp/turn signal sockets are made into their housing. How do I deal with this? Im sure someone has replaced these with different sockets before.
 
OK 67Dart273, Im having trouble locating where the diagram is that will help me trace R6 on the inside. I see it in the engine compartment diagram.

Please forgive me, I am trying to read these diagrams on my 10" android tablet. Works great, but its not quite as nice as being able to lay diagrams out in front of you. My printer is out of ink :(
 
R6 comes from B in the bulkhead connector (page 302 in my browser), and I assume you are looking at the shop manual I posted?

goes up and off the page at far top right, and continues on page 303, comes in to the "in harness splice" Find the turn signal switch, page 303, on far left, about center vertically, and go up to the second splice up, and you should see R6 coming in there

(Those can fail, by the way.) The splice, at least on later cars, is found by starting at the black ammeter ring terminal, and untaping the under dash harness a few inches until you come to it

It branches off and feeds:

R6A, black, one side of ammeter

J1, red, main feed to ignition switch.

L1, black/ tracer, feeds ONLY headlight power to the headlight switch. The switch has a built in breaker. It's important to understand this is ONLY headlight power. The park/tail/ dash power comes from a fuse in the panel

Q3, red/tracer, feeds off and up to the previous page, and feeds the main hot buss in the fuse panel.

And I'm sure you are aware that NONE of this is fused, except for the fuse link
 
Thanks alot. I just came back from the parts store, losing light really stinks. Im leaving R6 in place as im pretty sure i cant remove the terminal without damaging the connector, So i have drilled through the connector on an unused cavity.

I have located the welded splice, It is still intact. So im about to go splice the new R6 to the welded splice. I had to go buy fusible links cause as you suggested, I had already realized that the fusible link served as the only circuit protection.

I had already located the mymopar link you provided, and that guy seems to be running a new hot wire to both the red and black leads off the ammeter.

The links and help you've provided so far are invaluable, thank you so much for the help. The manual you provided the link for is what i am working off of.
 
Im going to leave the red lead of the ammeter alone, because according to the mymopar a&b links you provided, red only goes BACK through the bulkhead and terminates at the starter relay anyhow.
 
OK if you are doing the MAD bypass, you should also connect the red, as this puts the red and black in parallel, and they both together become your new battery feed. Since the ammeter is now bypassed with a new wire under the hood, this means that ONLY power TO the interior is going through those two, not charging current, so this somewhat relieves the strain on the two bulkhead terminals.

By the way, even "Ma" knew these were a problem back then. If you can find documentation in some of the shop manuals for "fleet wiring" (police, commercial, taxies) and hi- out alternators, they modified the wiring by running larger conductors through separate bulkhead grommets.
 
oh wow, You would think that MA might have fixed this much sooner than they did, as they seemed to use these ammeters into the late 70's right?

Thank you for the pointer on the Red wire. I will find this termination and unhook it from the starter relay and hook up my new one. The Mad method seems to be the fix it and be done with it once and for all. No surprises down the road. I have already passed the new wires through the bulkhead and am about to terminate the inside and hopefully get the dash put back in.
 
So, its 54° outside, dark, and with Monday night football and a cold beer calling my name, I'm going to call it a night. Here is a picture of exactly what i have done so far. Following your advise, I added a second wire for red. It only took a few mins.

ReDo.jpg


I am wondering if now is the time to take care of the cluster voltage regulator since i already have the cluster out. Mine works just fine, but rather safe than sorry?? lol

On the wiper switch. The whole back side of the switch pulled out rather than the connector coming off. Any chances i can just pop it back together?
 
I cannot read your text inserts. If you have the cluster out I'd take a REAL good look at it overall

I certainly would get a modern, solid state VR, check the harness connector pins (loose corroded) and check the studs/ nuts on the gauges, IE loosen/ tighten them several times to scrub them clean, and use "real" nuts on them.
 
When i get up i will run to radio shack and pick up a 7805 1.5a VR, and a 100uf electrolytic capacitor and take care of the cluster one and for all i hope.
 
Wrencher said:
When i get up i will run to radio shack and pick up a 7805 1.5a VR, and a 100uf electrolytic capacitor and take care of the cluster one and for all i hope.
Click to expand...
Some have done a roll-your-own like that and you can find posts w/ photos on the web. However, probably slicker to use a pre-built one for ~$30 as I did. One search that works is "Plymouth" and "voltage limiter" on ebay from seller pink something. Also links to a company RC or such from a FABO search.

You seem to have a good understanding and handle on the problem. You can remove the flat "57 terminals from the housing to sand, as I did. Lookup my post on using breakdown diodes to use the factory ammeter with a higher output alternator, if you feel tough enough.
 
Well, im just getting to read your post Bill, thanks for the input, but the deed is done lol. I was only able to get a 1A 7805VR, but i think im alright since the gauges are only pulling about .5a according to many websites I looked through last night. The gauges move very slowly into position compared to before, I hope that is the desired effect. Fuel gauge is a little lower than before but i attribute that to the less accurate mechanical "limiter" i removed.

The factory ammeter has apparently failed at some point, and this ugly, eyesore, aftermarket gauge was installed to replace it utilizing drywall screws to secure it to the bottom of the dash. Since im guessing that the original ammeter is inop, Im obliged to just leave it bypassed.

I didnt test the output of the alternator before, but right now it is charging at about 8a according to my fluke meter, with battery voltage sitting at idle bearly over 12.2. Ignition off voltage is high 11's. Since the battery slowly declined over the course of a weeks driving before i started all this, Im going to guess that the alternator is likely dying a slow death. I still need to go through and clean all my connections to rule that out, but I'm guessing that wont change much.

Im going to see what i can get at the wrecking yard, but a modern alternator that has lots of output at idle is likely what im going to try and get. something 60-100 amps would be nice. Im thinking Bosch alternator from a mid 90's Toyota 4runner or truck. They are reliable and are either 65 or 100A i believe, nice little upgrade i'd say. Then I'll get to Run more substantial wire, yet again:)

The only casualty is my wiper switch, I need a new one. That and my dash lights still dont work.
 
After looking through that thread, It seems like there are no compromises for the early cars. I wish there were though as it would be nice to have.
 
just punch up 66 (your car) wiring scematics kewl for wiring diagrams and fixing problems shut off switches nice to wire in so nobody can start your car also

without burning your wiring out you can see how to do it right and bump up your ballast resistors when you bump in a new alternator or they fry like that 85 amp floater can get in old style box too
 
So just a quick update; Today I put in a couple hours on the Dart, I added an aftermarket 6-gang fuse block to the mix so that i can add my future circuits to MY wiring, not the cars 46y.o. circuits :)

I chose to take power for the block right off the main stud for the starter relay, since it's now the main bus for the dash. I also ran an 8ga wire from the alternator to accommodate a larger output unit in the near future.

Next, I replaced the inner tail lamp sockets. The originals were fine, but the 1156 bulb that was in them is as bright as the outer's are with the brakes applied. I view this as a safety hazard. It is my understanding that the correct bulb is a pain in the *** to locate, so i simply chose to go to an 1157 socket, but only powered the dim side of the lamp. The other wire is unhooked. So now i can run the far more common 1157 on the inner and outer without the brightness issue.

Now comes the interesting part..... I get in the car to do a light check......nothing. No power, no start, not a word from the car. So I grab my trustee fluke 88 and dig in. 12.2v at the battery, relay, and even to the bulkhead. So I jump the relay with a screwdriver, nothing! Im like WTH??? Ground problem? but how? everything I did was on the power side?

So I run to AutoZone and pick up a new starter relay after ohming out my ground strap and finding nothing, and that took care of the issue. Easy enough, but strange nontheless.

Thinking that this ground issue may have onset slowly as most ground issues do, I wondered if my alternator output had risen. Low and behold it has, idle output is up from 9-9.5A to 12-12.6A. The stud for the Relay was clean, which is to say I wire brushed it a couple weeks ago doing all the work mentioned above. My question is, how did this ground affect my output??

I even unhooked the 8ga wire to rule out the wire size difference, which I seriously doubted was the issue anyway, but just to be sure. Wire size was not the x factor, that ground had to be
 
Since you were getting 12 at the bulkhead, this means the battery had to be grounded good enough to run the meter. IF it was a battery ground cable problem, you could have "shown up" the problem by repeating this test with the light switch on. The added load would have shown that up.

I'm not clear about what you've done with the bulkhead and ammeter circuit, these are the "Usual Suspects," starring the bulkhead connector, ammeter and connections, ignition switch and connections, and in rare cases the in harness welded splice
 

The light switch seemed to make no difference because it had no power but was still plugged in. The ground strap only had 8ohms of resistance from the firewall to the block. It seems that the whole problem was contained in the relay itself.

The readers digest version of what I've done.

- Mad Electrical version of the ammeter bypass.
- Solid state instrument cluster voltage regulator & cap
- Exposed welded splice to inspect, no issues found
- Added small (2") tach
- Cleaned bulkhead and put dielectric grease in to prevent further corrosion
- Re-positioned the wiring harness away from pinch point at the steering cloumn

Before today's adventures, I had actually driven the car a few times. So whatever happened, it started today when i took the starter relay bolt loose to install the bigger alt. wire and fuse block.
 
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